Coming Home
by make it stop jamie
Summary: Val comes home. Future fic. *chapter 4 IS not up because I put ch.4 of What You Leave Behind on the end of this story so just disregard it*
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: If I owned them do you think the show would have been canceled?

Author's Notes: Hello and welcome to my latest story. This one is a future fic in regular format. This first may be a little confusing, but as the story goes on the confusion will lessen (I promise). Oh and at the end of each chapter there will be a challenge of and an idea I got, but will probably never write, that I would like to share and hopefully someone will write it. Happy reading! And you have an idea for a title I would be very happy.

Chapter 1

Jamie Waite walked out the front doors of Kingsport High School and instead of heading for the parking lot like he usually did as soon as he had all his work done. Instead he headed toward the Memorial. Jamie walked up toward the slab of polished marble that held the names of all the people that had died that horrible day. He ran his finger down the list of all of the seniors that had died. There were so many of them. He went past the A's, B's, C's and all of the middle letters, to the R's then he found her name:

Caitlin Amber Roth

What had happened with Caitie had changed Jamie. Before that day he had never had anyone that was really close to him die. Then all the sudden his closest and best friend died. Now he realized that after a certain point you never got a second chance to go back and change things. You had to live for the moment. You couldn't leave things unsaid because you could turn around and that person could be gone.

Jamie missed her. The pain wasn't as great as it once had been, but it was still there. He didn't want it to go away. He didn't want to forget her. She was too much of a wonderful person to be forgotten.

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Jamie didn't recognize the women at first. She sitting on the lot it self with her back against a car. Her blue eyes were filled with guilt and pain and seemed to be looking at nothing. Her face was pale and filled also with pain.

Just as he was about to ask if she was alright when she turned and asked him, "Why didn't I die?"

Then Jamie realized who she was.

Chapter Challenge: Here it is my story challenge. This one is a bit on the strange side. The title has to be Plums, Tomatoes, and Grapes, Oh My! And it has to have the lines, "I can't go to movies with you because I bought a tomato," and "Go to fruit store". Thank my Germen teacher for this one. I also need title suggestions for this story. Thanks for reading and don't forget to review. I need at least one (good one) to write the next one. 


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Notes: I want to start off by thanking everyone who reviewed. I was so moved by your reviews that I started the rough draft for this at about 10:30 the night I read the reviews and finished at about 11:30. Do any of you watch X-Files (no this story is not turning into a cross-over)? Well, you know the new agent, not Dogget, the other one Agent Monica Reyes (or whatever her last name is). I think she was in In A Heartbeat as Jennifer (remember her form the first episode). Just kind of an interesting tidbit. I would like to thank all of you who gave me title suggestions. The one that I decided to use was Coming Home and thank you to whoever gave that suggestion (sorry I can't remember your name). I think I'll be getting on with the story now this is the longest author's notes ever. Happy Reading!

Coming Home

Chapter 2

Val climbed out of her car, locked the door and looked around the school parking lot. It had been so long since she had been there. She pushed back some of her barriers and remembered what the sky had looked like that day.

It had been bright blue and like her life then so full of promise. Not like the sky that mirrored her life now dark and dreary with no sun or ray of hope in sight.

She quickly pushed the memory back behind the barrier so that no more would slip through and continued on towards the school.

As she got closer to the school more and more painful memories began to slip through the barrier and she wanted to run. That's what she did whenever the pain or guilt got too great and memories began to slip through. She ran. She had done just that at her cousin's, Bobby's, wedding and it had earned her the title "Runaway Bridesmaid."

But she couldn't, she wanted to. She would have given anything to be able to run away form what she had done that day, that horrible day. She had been such a coward. But her legs kept pushing her closer, closer. Closer to her pain and guilt. Until she reached the polished marble stone. She had never read about the stone (everything about that day was taboo for her), but she what it was and why it was there.

She looked down at the list of names and forbidden memories of the people they represented. Jared Adams, the guy who sat in front of her in math class and always got one point higher than her on every test and quiz. Julie Cook, who always said high to her when they passed in the halls even know it had been years since they had a class together. Corey Mitchell, who always stood in front of her locker when she wanted to get her books out. Caitie Roth, her best friend. And the many others that she knew, but was too cowardly to save.

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Val didn't know how she had gotten to her car or why she was sitting there getting her uniform dirty or how long she had been sitting there. She was too lost in the thoughts that had overwhelmed her. Val also didn't know why she had asked Jamie Waite, who she had seen in a long time, the question she had been pondering since that horrible day, "Why didn't I die?"

Chapter challenge: This one is also Germen class inspired, but has nothing to do with vegetables. It has to take place in detention and have a J/C slant (what detention doesn't have a J/C slant) and involves a paper fight. Go have fun! I'm still looking forward to the vegetable fics. 


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Notes: Thanks for the reviews! And don't forget to review! Happy Reading! 

Coming Home

Chapter 3

"You were meant to live, Val," Jamie said, giving her the answer he had come up for that question.

"Why?" Val asked rhetorically, "I'm a coward, Jamie. I panicked that day, I should have been the one trapped under the building. It should have been Caitie and Tyler that remained unharmed. Neither of them would have run away like a coward," As she said this the already dark sky grew darker and water began to fall. Big drops the type that sound like tiny pebbles from the inside of a car.

"Val, Caitie didn't die in the collapse," Jamie said. Now realizing how much Val had isolated herself.

"She didn't?" Val asked with a quizzical look on her face, as the raid pelted her.

"No, Mr. Keeler killed her," Jamie said. Now Val was really confused and wet. She knew Mr. Keeler had been Caitie's English teacher all throughout high school and that according to Caitie was a "racist sexist pig". Val couldn't even recall how many signatures Caitie had collected at various times. She also knew that a few days before, she died, Caitie had succeeded and just as soon they could find a replacement he would be leaving.

"How did he kill Caitie?" Val asked not sure she wanted to know the answer, but she knew she needed to hear it.

Jamie paused trying to find the best way to tell Val. "You know that Caitie got Mr. Keeler fired," Val nodded through the pouring rain, "Well, apparently he decided to take his revenge out on her English class. At the beginning of 5th period just after the bell rang and by the time of the collapse he had killed most of the girls, Caitie being one of them," Now that Val knew she wanted to run, leave Kingsport behind and go as far away as possible. So she ran, but she only got a few feet before the combination of her high heels and the wet parking lot brought her down. 

"Are you okay?" Jamie asked, leaning over her.

"Yes, I think so, but could you help me up?" Val said, "I think I sprained my ankle,"

"Here you go," Jamie said bending down to help her up and then helped support her as they walked. "You can stay at my house tonight. By the way where do you live?"

"Falls Church. Thanks," Val said as Jamie helped her into his mini van. He couldn't see the look on her face, but he could guess what it was. He just hoped he would be able to see the look on her face when she found out that he was a school consular. He had softened just a bit form his rebel days.

Val looked around her new surrounding and as surprised to see in the backseat two car seats. She didn't know if she could picture Jamie as a dad, but she guessed that explained why he had the mini van. "How old are your kids?" She asked him as he pulled out of the parking space.

"Sarah's three and a half and Kate will be one next month," Jamie said and then noticed the glittering diamond on Val's finger, "Who are you engaged to?"

A/N: I finally finished! This took me three days to type (I only get thirty minutes a day of regular computer time). Well, anyways I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Happy reading! And don't forget to review! Thanks! 


	4. chapter4

Author's Notes: I'm back! Guess what? Guess what? I went to my first Star Trek Convention! It was really, really cool! Enough about me. Sorry it took me so long to get this out. Thanks for all your reviews! I hope you like this chapter. Tyler WILL be in the next chapter I promise and that chapter will the last. Happy reading! 

What You Leave Behind

Chapter 4

Hank was looking through the students trying to get to safety to find one of his friends or someone that could use his help, but so far he hadn't seen any of his friends and all of the people that he had seen that had been shot were beyond help. Then he saw her. She was huddled almost in a little ball at the end of a row of lockers, rocking back and forth, her eyes were shut tight as if she was a little kid trying to block out the image of a scary movie.

Hank knew he couldn't leave her there, she was too vulnerable, she looked too innocent. So he went over to her crouched down beside her.

"Attention staff and students the school is going into lock-down. Please proceed to the nearest classroom," Hank heard Mr. Carlson say over the PA system. He turned to the girl who hadn't ceased her rocking and still had her eyes shut tight. 

"You need to get up, okay?" He told her as gently as he could. His voice got her to stop rocking and she opened up eyes and looked at him. Her eyes had the same scared and frightened look as Sam Revere's had been the night of the accident. "Come on," He told her as he stood up. When she didn't follow him, he reached down and helped her up. When he did this she grabbed tightly onto his arm and didn't let go. He could feel her shaking and quick rasps of breath as she leaned against him. "It's going to be okay," He told her mostly to clam her down, but he wasn't sure if anything was going to be okay again.

Hank was about to open up the door and helped her into the closest classroom, when the girl suddenly stopped, her whole body going rigid. Now Hank really didn't know what to do. He didn't want to force her into the classroom and it was quite obvious that she didn't want to go in there, but Hank knew that they needed to get out of the open. Suddenly he spotted it. It just next door to the ill fated classroom was another door with the word "Janitor" on the door. It would be the perfect place for them to hide until the shooting, it was probably not unlocked, but it was worth a try.

With the girl still attached to his side he walked over to the small janitorial closet. Hank reached out for the doorknob and prayed that the closet was unlocked and it was. He let himself and the girl in an then shut the door. The closet was small and dark. He began to fumble along the wall closet to the door for the light switch. After knocking down what seemed to be a mop, he found it and flipped it on. As the yellowish light swept over the small space he was reminded of the storage closet at the EMT station. There were boxes piled up in one corner and variety of cleaning equipment more or less scattered through out the rest of the room.

"Have a seat," Hank told the girl, pulling out a box for her to sit on and one for him to sit on.

Just as she sat down gunshots could be heard resonating from the side of one of the walls. The girl quickly jumped from her seat and ran to the quiet side of the room. Hank followed her and bent down to where she was crouched. He wanted to tell that it was going to be okay, but didn't want to lie. So he just sat there with her.

"We haven't introduced ourselves yet," Hank said breaking the silence and trying to take the girl's mind off of what was occurring in the next room, "I'm Hank. And you are?" He asked hoping to get a response.

"Jenny," She said in a voice full of fear. She pulled her legs closer up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, "I just want it to stop,"

"It will," Hank said trying to reassure her, "It will," 


End file.
